This is Day 2 of the 21-Day Journaling Challenge (21DJC) for Nov 2011. Read the announcement and details on the challenge here: 21-Day Journaling Challenge.

Hi everyone – Welcome to Day 2 of 21DJC!

Yesterday’s question was an age-old question – “What would you do if you have one million dollars?” Many of you had interesting responses. Some of you wanted to buy a nice, large house. Some of you wanted to use it to invest and grow more money. Some of you wanted to renovate your current home. Some of you wanted to start up a charity / NGO / organization that supports a humanitarian cause of your choice. Some of you wanted to travel around the world. Some of you wanted to give a portion to your family and friends, to enable them in their goals.

Whatever it is that you wrote, know that they represent inner wishes that you’ve been wanting to fulfill, but have yet to do so. Yesterday’s question was actually to draw out these innermost desires and bring them to your awareness.

And the interesting thing is, you don’t have to till you have $1 million before you can fulfill these desires.

What do I mean?

Goals represent your inner desires. One way to satisfy these desires is to achieve the actual goals themselves. However, you can only do that when you have $1 million in your arsenal (since it takes time to manifest). By having a goal that has to be deferred (i.e. you can’t work on your $1 million goals yet because you haven’t achieved $1 million), it’ll only disempower you and prevent you from living in the now.

The more empowering way is to (a) distill to those very desires and (b) find ways to realize them this very moment.

Look at what you wrote for yesterday’s $1 million question. Ask yourself – (a) What desires do these goals represent? (b) How can I realize these desires, right away today?

For example, say one of your $1 million goals is to travel around the world. In reality, you may not be able to travel to any country that you want now because of financial reasons.

However, remember that this isn’t the point. If you look at the desire this goal represents, it possibly reflects a desire to break free and take a breather, due to a prolonged period of not resting. The answer to realizing that then, would be to start taking breaks, even short vacations or just having the weekend off (see Habit #2 of 8 Habits of Highly Effective People). It may reflect a desire to be exposed to new cultures and grow from the multitude of experiences, of which you can already start doing now by getting out there to meet people of other backgrounds.

Another example – Say one of your goals is to allocate $X to your parents, as gratitude for bringing you up. You can already realize that now by sharing $Y every month, where $Y is a smaller amount than $X, adjusted to reflect how much you can spare for this purpose. You can be more generous toward them in your daily life. You can treat them to lunch/dinner/vacations, more so than you’re already doing now. Or if money isn’t a commodity at your disposal, you can do other things like prepare meals for them, write a card, spend more time to them, as acts of gratitude.

And so on and so forth the other $1 million goals.

There’s no need to put life on hold till [X event] happens. That’ll be to put off living. Think about how you can make your desires happen now. This is what it means to live in the now.

3 Important Things To Note Before Continuing

#1. Sign Up First Before You Proceed

Here’s a quick shout out – We now have over 570 official participants!! *whistles and claps* :clap: That’s over 140 new participants registered in the past 24 hours!! To all new participants – Welcome on board!!

For those who have not signed up yet, it’s not too late – you *can* still sign up now. Simply hop over to the announcement post, complete the 3 steps to sign-up, and you’ll be added to the list in 24 hours:

Please make sure you’re signed up before you proceed. The comments area for each day’s post is designated only for those who have signed up for the challenge.

#2. Post Your Entries in the Right Thread

Some of you have been erroneously posting your journal entries in the wrong thread. For example, posting your replies to the questions for Day 1 and Day 2 in the announcement post, and so on.

Note that the announcement post is only for sign up registration, while Day 1′s post is for posting your Day 1′s journal entries; Day 2′s post is for Day 2′s journal entries, and so on. I’ll be deleting the entries that are posted in the wrong thread from now on, as it makes it confusing for other readers. Please kindly cooperate and follow the instructions for the benefit of the community – thank you!

#3. Get Your Gravatar

You may have noticed some participants have a nice profile picture displayed with their comments. For example, my comment here. Most of you have the default PE logo (maroon red with white text), because you have not created your gravatar account.

To set your custom profile picture, visit Gravatar, register your account (Important: Make sure it’s the same email as the one you use in your blog comments) and upload your profile picture. Your picture will automatically be reflected in all your blog comments where you had filled out the same email address as the one in your Gravatar account. This is a great way to spruce up the comments section and individualize yourself!

Let’s now move on to the question for Day 2 of 21DJC!

21DJC Day 2

Day’s 2 question is one of my personal favorites:

If You Are To Do Something For Free For the Rest of Your Life, What Would It Be?

Would you sleep and do nothing? Would you pursue a certain passion? What would that passion be? Would you be pursuing a particular craft? What would that be? Would you be traveling around the world? Would you be blogging? What about? Would you want to pursue a humanitarian cause? What would it be? Would you be writing? What about?

Update: Some readers seem to have some confusion over how to interpret the question. Is the question supposed to mean what you would willingly do without receiving money for? Or is it suppose to mean what you would want to do because it does not cost anything?

My answer? The former. If I were to rephrase the question: “What would you want to do for the rest of your life if you are never paid for this work?” In other words, your life passion. Your life purpose. Hope that helps!

Put on your reflection cap and let your thoughts flow. Below is an empty form which you can use to write your answers to the question. Treat it as your private 21DJC journaling “room”, if you will. You will be seeing this form every day, for the 21 days of the challenge. There’s a button for you to keep track of your word count too, if you’re interested.

(Note you will not see the form below if you’re viewing this in your email client. Visit the actual post online to see the form.)

If You Are To Do Something For Free For the Rest of Your Life, What Would It Be?

Your Task Today:

Reflect and answer today’s question. There’s no word limit – whether minimum or maximum. Write as few or as many words as you want. It’s all up to what you want to express!

Share your answer. After you are done writing, copy and paste your answer in the comments area and post it there.

Check out other participants’ answers. Other participants will be sharing their answers too, so feel free to read and reply to their answers. This is a group course, so let’s support each other in these 21 days.

I would try be a better role model for those that ‘observe’ my life. Especially, my adult children and grandchildren. A better role model – not perfect. I would be kind to people, share insights, help wherever I could.

I would love to do the following things:
1. Traveling. I would love to go to different countries, learn about cultures and meet new people. See the beauty of our planet in other countries but also in my own country. To see what my surroundings, my community has to offer. Learn of new places and visit them with my friends and family.
2. Cooking and baking. I love to try new recipes and share the end results with friends and family. Nothing is better than to spend an evening with good food and a table full of friends and family whom all have a good time.
3. Learning new things. To be able to get all the degrees I want, to learn new things every day. Be it from a book, or from an experience in every-day life. To step past the boundaries I have and learn.

If I am to do something for free for rest of my life I would tell stories. I would read all the good books and for those stories which are inspiring and heart warming ..make a movie on each of them..
I love to tell stories..and I love to listen to them as well… books/blogs and movies are the best possible ways to tell them to people..
if I look back to the path I have followed in my life so far, I can see that I have actually shaped my life on the basis of those stories which have touched me in my innermost feelings. consciously or subconsciously the messages from those stories have helped to carve my life.. And I am happy the way I am. So I feel If I can tell stories to others may be somewhere out there ,there is another kid who will listen . That story may become one of her dreams or at least make her happy for the time being

When I come across any good story I always have a mental sketch on how I would want to share that. Some stories make feel like to make a short film on them, some make me feel like to call up a friend and tell her.. some times I feel like this can be better re-told in my own language so that people from another part of the world can taste it… and some stories are for kids to make them happy they can be silly sketches

First thing that comes to my mind is sleep. But that’s just because I’m tired and would really like to get some long sleep, read newspapers in bed and eat breakfast in bed. Well, that’s something I should do every Sunday – and I think I will. One goal accomplished.
I would read all the books in the world. I think I’ll start that with my breakfasts in bed on Sunday.
I would learn couple of foreign languages. Learn to draw and sew. All the things I don’t have time right now (or I just make excuses not to act on them).
When I put it all like that, it seems that I can do all the things I want; I just need to stop making excuses.

Whenever I hear this type of question about what I want to do, or where I want to be, I always think of the situational anecdote and John Lennon quote of being asked the question “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”
I want to be insanely happy, and I’d like to inspire others to be as well and pursuing their passions that make them feel like they have a purpose.

That would be my personal mission, but on a daily basis, I’d like to be travelling around the world and live somewhere different every few months. To learn and to share my experiences.

The two things I am really passionate about are nature and travelling !
When I started thinking of what I would be willing to be doing for free for the rest of my life the first thing that came to my mind was growing flowers, making beautiful bouquets and presenting them to people. And the second thought, which came almost at the same time was that I want to travel all over the world, be telling people and especially small children about my experience and through my stories teach them how important is to spread love around ourselves.
First, I thought that these things are two different types of activity a person can do, as taking care of flowers would mean that you always need to be in the garden and it doesn’t go alone with travelling.
But… ! … on the other hand:
1. I could always spend half year travelling and half year gardening, or
2. Maybe, growing flowers is basically one of my views of being closer to what I love and at the same time give people beautiful moments, which basically means spreading love around.
There may be lots of variations and possible ways to combine those two things that i love.

However, what is really important for me now is that now I have understood that whatever i would want to be doing, it should be connected with people, nature and sharing love and beauty with others.

I like your entry because it gave me a different perspective in answering the question. You see, i answered it by thinking of the activities i do now that i get paid for and think which among them i am willing to do for the rest of my life for free.

I haven’t thought of activities that i do that costs me money and if i am willing to do it for free. I just realized that i am most focused about my job and where to earn more money rather than on having a little break.

I don’t know if i am making sense but great post!

P.S. i am following the entries through email. I wanted to hit reply to your post but the email link is sending me to the first comment in the Day 2 challenge. Hard to search with all the comments Good job guys!

Strangely, when I started thinking, I felt that nothing would be as good as what I am doing now…running my own business. I would want to do it for free for the rest of my life. Great bunch of people, a business which does something for my country, my ability to experiment with various management techniques (how humbling it is!), etc., etc., Wow! Thanks!!

To get something for free-That would have to be knowledge. There is so many things that I would love to learn about, and with that new knowledge I would help others as my way of giving back. To teach and show them what I have learned. Some traveling would also be nice.

To think about doing something for the rest of your life whether it be free or not is quite daunting. But with that in mind if I had to choose something I would have to say successfully running my business from where ever I was in the world at that point. While spending huge amounts of my time enjoying myself with my family and friends, eating beautiful foods, laughing and loving life!

I automatically thought about what profession I would take on if I wasn’t getting paid, and I find it a little concerning that I wouldn’t do my current job. I’m a preschool teacher and I absolutely love it. I am in grad school for early childhood special education and one day I hope to open an inclusive school for typically developing, disabled, and disadvantaged children. But when I thought about this topic, my mind went to….wedding/event planning. I’m sure it has something to do with the creativity and high paced/high tension environment that I find invigorating. The glamor/style aspect doesn’t hurt either. In some ways, preschool has those qualities, minus the glamor, which could be what I’m craving at the moment.

In fact… It IS what I’m craving now. I need a little more glamor and sparkle in my life.

Yes for all of it: rest, pursuing passion like learning dance, musical instrument, doing something adventurous, travelling, blogging about my experiences and creativity for free as I am doing at present, also take up humanitarian causes; educating poor children for free…
However if the task involves intensive research for instance, publishing book/s on my favourite topic/s, if the work is monotonous, labourious then I want it to be rewarded. Will look at others answers for drawing inspiration.
( i am not able to use smilies. Dont know why its not working at my PC)

I believe it’s to do with whether javascript is enabled on your browser. If you upgrade to the latest version of either Google Chrome, Firefox or IE, you should be able to make it work. That or enable javascripts.